Bergdahl coming to S.A.

Updated 2:18 am, Friday, June 13, 2014

Photo: Uncredited, HOEP

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In this image taken from video obtained from Voice Of Jihad Website, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl sits in a vehicle guarded by the Taliban in eastern Afghanistan. The Taliban have released a video showing the handover of Bergdahl to U.S. forces in eastern Afghanistan. The video, emailed to media on Wednesday, shows Bergdahl in traditional Afghan clothing sitting in a pickup truck parked on a hillside. More than a dozen Taliban fighters with machine guns stand around the truck and on the hillside. (AP Photo/Voice Of Jihad Website via AP video) less

In this image taken from video obtained from Voice Of Jihad Website, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl sits in a vehicle guarded by the Taliban in ... more

Photo: Uncredited, HOEP

Image 2 of 8

In this image taken from video obtained from Voice Of Jihad Website, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl sits in a vehicle guarded by the Taliban in eastern Afghanistan. The Taliban have released a video showing the handover of Bergdahl to U.S. forces in eastern Afghanistan. The video, emailed to media on Wednesday, shows Bergdahl in traditional Afghan clothing sitting in a pickup truck parked on a hillside. More than a dozen Taliban fighters with machine guns stand around the truck and on the hillside. (AP Photo/Voice Of Jihad Website via AP video) less

In this image taken from video obtained from Voice Of Jihad Website, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl sits in a vehicle guarded by the Taliban in ... more

Photo: Uncredited, HOEP

Image 3 of 8

In this image taken from video obtained from Voice Of Jihad Website, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl sits in a vehicle guarded by the Taliban in eastern Afghanistan. The Taliban have released a video showing the handover of Bergdahl to U.S. forces in eastern Afghanistan. The video, emailed to media on Wednesday, shows Bergdahl in traditional Afghan clothing sitting in a pickup truck parked on a hillside. More than a dozen Taliban fighters with machine guns stand around the truck and on the hillside. (AP Photo/Voice Of Jihad Website via AP video) less

In this image taken from video obtained from Voice Of Jihad Website, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl sits in a vehicle guarded by the Taliban in ... more

Photo: Uncredited, HOEP

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In this image taken from video obtained from Voice Of Jihad Website, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, A Taliban fighter speaks to Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, in eastern Afghanistan. The Taliban on Wednesday, June 4, 2014 released a video showing the handover of Bergdahl to U.S. forces in eastern Afghanistan, touting the swap of the American soldier for five Taliban detainees from Guantanamo as a significant achievement for the insurgents. (AP Photo/Voice Of Jihad Website via AP video) less

In this image taken from video obtained from Voice Of Jihad Website, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, A Taliban fighter speaks to Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, in eastern ... more

Photo: Uncredited, HOEP

Image 5 of 8

In this image taken from video obtained from the Voice Of Jihad Website, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl sits in a vehicle guarded by the Taliban in eastern Afghanistan. The Taliban have released a video showing the handover of Bergdahl to U.S. forces in eastern Afghanistan. The video, emailed to media on Wednesday, shows Bergdahl in traditional Afghan clothing sitting in a pickup truck parked on a hillside. More than a dozen Taliban fighters with machine guns stand around the truck and on the hillside. (AP Photo/Voice Of Jihad Website via AP video) less

In this image taken from video obtained from the Voice Of Jihad Website, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl sits in a vehicle guarded by the Taliban in ... more

Photo: Uncredited, HOEP

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FILE - In this Saturday, June 22, 2013 file photo, Bob Bergdahl, right, and Jani Bergdahl, the parents of captive U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, hold hands as they pray at the "Bring Bowe Back" celebration held to honor Sgt. Bergdahl in Hailey, Idaho. Hundreds of activists for missing service members gathered in the town to hear the parents of the only known U.S. prisoner of war speak just days after his Taliban captors announced they want to exchange him for prisoners being held at Guantanamo Bay. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong) ORG XMIT: NYPS412 less

FILE - In this Saturday, June 22, 2013 file photo, Bob Bergdahl, right, and Jani Bergdahl, the parents of captive U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, hold hands as they pray at the "Bring Bowe Back" celebration held ... more

Photo: Jae C. Hong

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FILE - In this Saturday, May 31, 2014 file photo, President Barack Obama shakes hands with Bob Bergdahl as Jani Bergdahl stands at left, during a news conference in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington about the release of their son, U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. The soldier went missing from his outpost in Afghanistan in June 2009 and was released from Taliban captivity on May 31, 2014 in exchange for five enemy combatants held in the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) ORG XMIT: NYPS413 less

FILE - In this Saturday, May 31, 2014 file photo, President Barack Obama shakes hands with Bob Bergdahl as Jani Bergdahl stands at left, during a news conference in the Rose Garden of the White House in ... more

Photo: Carolyn Kaster

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Bergdahl coming to S.A.

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SAN ANTONIO — Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who was released in a prisoner swap after being held for five years by the Taliban, is expected to arrive Friday in San Antonio after spending more than a week in Germany.

“He is scheduled to arrive tomorrow,” said a defense official, who would not elaborate.

Bergdahl will be brought to the San Antonio Military Medical Center, where doctors will help him become reoriented after his years in captivity. He is expected to reunite with his parents here as part of what the military calls a reintegration process.

But the return of Bergdahl, 28, of Hailey, Idaho, has been mired in controversy. Some GIs say he walked off his base in Afghanistan before being captured. Others have alleged that soldiers died while looking for Bergdahl, and have told media that they had concerns he was actively helping his captors.

The Pentagon has said little about those claims, but has been on the defensive about a deal that swapped five high-ranking Taliban leaders for Bergdahl.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, in testimony Wednesday before the House Armed Services Committee, said the decision to trade the Taliban leaders for Bergdahl was consistent with U.S. law and its interests, as well as core values.

Hagel also told the committee that he would not have supported a decision that wasn't in the country's best interests.

“The prisoner exchange was done legally, with substantial mitigation of risk and in the national interest of our country,” he said.

Bergdahl had been listed as missing-captured since his disappearance in 2009. Hagel told the panel that no charges were ever brought against the soldier and none were pending against him today.

“We never stopped trying to get him back, as the Congress knows, because he is a soldier in the United States Army,” Hagel said, also telling the panel that the prisoner exchange was done “with substantial mitigation of risk and in the national interest of our country.”

Since his disappearance in 2009, Bergdahl was officially listed as missing-captured, and he was prompted twice.

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